Lyla Moody has put together her life after some obsessive behavior (which is oft-referenced, never fully explored). Part of the joy in her life includes a book club called the Jane Does which reads mystery stories. But they recently also seem to have discussed some nearby Jane Doe cases and that becomes a major clue into what happened to one of their members.
It is, in fact, Lyla who is one of the last people to Carol, a judge's wife before she disappears, only to have her body appear at Lyla's house in such a way that it is very apparent she couldn't have gotten herself there. Lyla works for her uncle's detective agency but she is just an admin. At least, she was before now. Now, she wants to know what happened to her friend.
Lyla does start by being smarter than the average fictional amateur detective and giving her information to the police, even the slightly sinister Officer Taylor. He sure doesn't seem to like Lyla. But he does like her best friend which may come in to play later in the series.
I liked the idea for the series and will read the next book for sure but this book was a bit disordered and I sure hope that the publisher had a good line editor because there were a LOT of spelling errors/word choices (I didn't count it against the book.) The story was a little bit all over the place too. There was some world building but there were a lot of lines added to the story that weren't completely woven in.
Three stars
This book came out October 6th
ARC kindly provided by Crooked Lane Library and NetGalley
Opinions are my own
